UTU News Digest - Tuesday, December 15, 1998

UTU Daily News Digest

Information of interest to operating railroad and transportation employees

Tuesday, December 15, 1998

UP shippers, competitors to ask STB to open gulf region

WASHINGTON -- Union Pacific (UP) competitors, major chemical companies and other shippers are scheduled to ask the U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) today to expand restrictions on the railroad and force it to sell various lines in Texas where congestion snarled shipments last year.

The STB agreed to schedule the hearing at the urging of a coalition of shippers, smaller railroads, and the Texas Rail Commission. According to reports, Dow Chemical Company, E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) will be attending the hearing.

Those petitioning the STB claim that forcing UP to give up some of its trackage in Texas will improve service and lower shipping costs.

Under one of the coalition's proposals, the Texas Mexican Railway Co. and Kansas City Southern, which owns 49% of the Tex-Mex, would build a new 80-mile rail line from Houston to Beaumont, Tex., giving shippers an alternative route while helping to untangle traffic.

The group also wants to force the UP to sell to the Tex-Mex. rights to a 90-mile stretch of rail line between Rosenberg and Victoria, Tex. That plan also calls for the UP to sell or lease a rail yard to Tex-Mex.

Though BNSF didn't call for the hearing, the UP's main rival is also seeking changes in Texas. In particular, BNSF has stated it doesn't want to depend on other railroads for access to Mexico.

STB Chairperson Linda Morgan said she believes problems in Texas could be addressed without the hearing, but she will give each side "every opportunity to distill the record or to address particular issues in more detail."

STB nixes W&LE bid for expansion

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) has refused to expand the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway's (W&LE) service, and has instead directed the carrier to continue talks with CSX and Norfolk Southern (NS) to resolve a trackage rights dispute.

The dispute is rooted in several conditions attached to the STB's approval of the purchase of Conrail by CSX and NS.

The W&LE had claimed the acquisition would cause it to lose as much as $15 million annually, threatening its viability.

STB calculations showed an estimated loss of no more than $3 million a year, but the board agreed the W&LE needed more routes.

The W&LE was granted trackage rights to reach connecting railroads at Toledo and Lima, Ohio, as well as additional rights to serve some Ohio shippers of aggregates, a handful of West Virginia customers, and an ore dock on Lake Erie.

The W&LE had asked the agency six weeks ago to give it access to shippers in Toledo and Lima, Ohio, broader rights to the Huron ore docks in the Toledo area, and sought a switching fee to be set at $184 a car.

"Despite petitioner's assertions to the contrary, it was not our intention to maximize W&LE's financial prospects in each instance where we imposed a condition on its behalf," STB said in last week's decision.

The board urged the parties to negotiate further, and promised oversight of the issues covered in its decision to approve the Conrail transaction.

Mass., Maine passenger rail link construction set for March

BOSTON -- The executive director of the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority said he expects construction on a 78-mile stretch of rail line between Boston, Mass., and Portland, Maine, to begin in March 1999.

Michael J. Murray, who heads the passenger rail authority, hailed a recently signed agreement between the authority, Amtrak, and Billerica-based Guilford Rail Systems as a key event.

Obstacles overcome on the road to the pact included agreement to certain infrastructure improvements sought by Guilford and setting the speed of trains along the 78-mile route between Boston and Portland at 79 mph.

One element -- the weight support of the tracks -- has yet to be decided. The U.S. Surface Transportation Board (STB) will decide whether the tracks should be 132 pounds per yard instead of 115 pounds to support the higher speeds.

The parties have agreed to start ordering materials, locating equipment and hiring crews in order to be prepared when the STB makes its decision, which Murray expects in 90 days.

Murray said he expects service to begin in the summer of 2000 between North Station and Portland. The route, now a popular freight line, has not been used for passenger operations in more than 30 years.

"I think it's one of the most significant developments in the last three years," Murray told a Boston Business Journal reporter. "No longer are we talking about that project. We are starting that project."

The Amtrak trains operating on the line will be under contract to the state of Maine, and they will operate on tracks owned by Guilford. Cost of the project will reach about $60 million, including station improvements and other projects. The state of Maine contributed $3 million to the project, while former Sen. George Mitchell secured $35 million in federal grants, and Sen. Olympia Snowe secured another $23 million in an Amtrak reauthorization bill two years ago.

The Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority was created by the Maine Legislature in 1995 to restore passenger rail service between Portland and Boston and elsewhere in the state. Pending plans call for extending the line from Portland to Brunswick, with a stop in Freeport, the home of L. L. Bean.

Kansas City Southern launches new website

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Kansas City Southern Industries Inc. (KCS) has launched a newly designed internet website to support its growing Transportation Division, the company said.

Located under the internet address www.kcsi.com, the new site highlights each of the five railroads which comprise KCS's NAFTA Railway, and enables shippers to trace cars and access other continually updated data through its mainframe and 12 document databases.

"A primary objective of the new site is to accommodate shippers' needs to retrieve real-time information and conduct business transactions over the internet," said Bill Graham, senior vice president of marketing and sales.

KCS plans to continue expanding its site to offer shippers more ways to conduct business over the internet, said Graham. "Our site currently features two car tracing applications but we'll be adding many new transactions throughout 1999. We'll start by adding bill of lading submission and fleet tracing and update transactions in January."

To make it easy for key audiences to find what they're looking for, the site organizes information in four sections by the audiences expected to use the site: "customers," "investors," "media," and "employees & friends."

DOT's RSPA to issue "friendlier" hazardous materials regulations

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of Transportation's (DOT) Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA) has proposed rewriting existing hazardous materials transportation regulations to make them more user-friendly and easier to read and understand.

"Too often federal regulations are filled with language that is difficult to interpret," said RSPA Administrator Kelley S. Coyner. "We want to put our regulations into plain language, thus making them easier to understand and comply with."

The RSPA proposal comes in response to a June 1, 1998, Memorandum from President Clinton that directed federal agencies to provide easy-to-read federal regulations.

In accordance with the directive, RSPA reorganized and reworded certain parts of its hazardous materials regulations using plain-language techniques. These methods include shorter paragraphs and sentences, a question-and-answer format, and the use of personal pronouns and active voice.

In coordination with the Office of the Federal Register and the National Partnership for Reinventing Government, RSPA is proposing an entirely new format for the Federal Register and Code of Federal Regulations which is intended to make federal regulations much easier to read. The proposed format changes include staggering paragraph indentations, larger spacing between paragraphs, clarifying tables, centered headings and the use of bullets when listing preamble summaries.

The NPRM was published in the Dec. 11, 1998, Federal Register.